


The Worst Roommate

by Strikxen



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: College AU, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-07-29 09:58:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7679971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Strikxen/pseuds/Strikxen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mako is quiet and wants to have a nice quiet college experience, but a last minute room change leaves him with an extremely obnoxious and rude roommate from hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't meant to be my greatest work of art, but something to do until I can get back to writing another story. This college AU is very loosely based off some of my own experiences in my first year of college. Very loosely. My roommates weren't the worst. In fact by the end of the year we had grown close.
> 
> I plan to finish this!
> 
> QUICK EDIT: I used Jack twice like a dummy. Quickly cut dad Morrison out as he's less important to the story. Sorryyyyyyy! Also a little update to the tags, I made the tags a few days before I was done writing the first chapter and outlining the rest of the story.

Mako was already in his room and set up when the sound of the door mechanism clicked and the room flooded with people. It felt like such an invasion of privacy that he felt downright sick to his stomach.

He didn’t want to have a roommate, but the college dorm system made getting a single room out of the price range for many. This was the case for Mako Rutledge and his family that worked really hard to make him the first of their family to go to college. He had actually signed up for a room with three roommates, but due to complications, he got switched last minute for no extra charge, which was lucky for him at least. He and his family had arrived hours earlier to set up his room, help him get settled and take a few photos. However, they didn’t stay long. His father and aunt had night jobs that they couldn’t get time off from and had to make the grueling 3 and a half hour journey back to their hometown.

Mako knew this must’ve been his roommate “Jamison”. He hadn’t gotten a chance for introductions as he was notified about the change the night before. He frowned at the lack of organization within the student housing system.

“Oi! You’re my roomie, yeah?” a distinctly Australian accent directed at him amongst the chatter of everyone else.

Mako nodded and looked back at his book. Maybe he should leave while their family was here, but he didn’t really have anywhere to go.

“Jamison, help us with these bags,” the boy’s mother requested.

Mako was surprised to hear that she didn’t have an Australian accent, and neither did the rest of his family. Adopted perhaps? Mako decided that he didn’t care and didn’t want to spend time thinking about it.  

As they pulled Jamison’s things in the room, the claustrophobia from 5 people in one small dorm room set Mako on edge. He didn’t like it at all. The whole family was loud and things were everywhere. With a small, frustrated huff, Mako stood up with his book and walked out the door. He definitely didn’t want anything to do with his loud roommate and his loud family.

“Wait!”

Mako turned to see Jamison poking his head out of the door, blushing a bit.

“Me mum wants to say hi to you first before you go running off. It’s stupid but will you just come over here so she get’s off my back.”

Mako blinked a few times, “Why?’

“I dunno. She’s weird n’ sentimental n’ shit. Just come back right quick.”

He walked back slowly to see the pleasant looking blonde woman extend a hand to him, he took it and shook briefly to be polite.

“Hello, I’m Jamison’s mother, Angela. It’s nice to meet his roommate.”

“Uh, Hi. ‘m Mako,” he mumbled back.

Before he could turn away, the woman gestured to the younger girl in the room.

“And this is our daughter Hana, she’s still a bit young for college, but hopefully she’ll follow her brother’s footsteps.” 

 

“Ok….” Mako said.

There was a loud crash further in the room as Jamison dropped a vase. Mako used it at his excuse to slip out unnoticed. Maybe it was time to find a hiding place for the rest of the year.

-

Mako didn’t come back to the room until after he ate dinner in the dining commons, wanting to allow the family ample time to vacate the premises. Hopefully, the room would be empty, and he would be able to scroll through the internet peacefully. But the moment he got to the dorm floor, and heard the heavy pounding of bass, he knew that this wouldn’t be the case.

“Mark! Hey! C’mere! I invited some friends over! Meet some of them!”

Mako saw his roommate looking right at him. He frowned.

“Mako.” he said.

“What?”

“My name. It’s Mako.”

“Right, sure, whatever. Get in here!”

Mako walked over and peeked in; at least 10 people were all shoved into the tiny room.

“No.” Mako said, barely able to be heard above the music.

“What was that again? You really gotta speak up there mate.”

“

” he practically shouted, “Get them out of here! Turn off that fucking music, it’s awful.”

Mako’s face was red with anger and embarrassment as everyone had turned to look at him, and a few of them were starting to whisper to each other. His legs shook, but he held his ground.

“What’s wrong with you?’ Jamison frowned, “It’s my room too.”

Mako was about to respond but one of the girls in the room spoke up, “Whatever, Jamie, he’s not worth it. Let’s go to my room, I got some beer from my older brother.”

“Yeah fuck it.”

There was a few minutes while people awkwardly got up and shuffled out of the room. The door slammed behind Mako and the loud music faded away as the group walked away. Somehow in a few hours, the whole room was already an absolute disaster. Things were strewn everywhere and the beds were rumpled. Someone had been sitting in his bed. An uncomfortable chill crept up his spine as the invasion of privacy was realized.

Mako felt like he was going to throw up when his hands touched his bed and the comforter was warm. He tore the blanket off and decided to change it before even thinking about sleeping in it. It took him a few minutes to get the bed changed and into his bed, but finally he was able to settle in and fall asleep. Maybe he’ll be able to forget about having the worst roommate ever.

-

Mako stirred a bit before waking up at about 8, and somehow the entire room was even messier than before. Jamison was in his bed, his limbs were sprawled awkwardly and half of him wasn’t even on the bed. It was now that Mako noticed something he hadn’t before. Thrown on the ground was two prosthetics, an arm and a leg. Jamison had two stumps on his right side, Mako was surprised that he hadn’t noticed before. He wondered passively what had happened to him. Sighing, Mako sat up and threw his legs over the edge of the bed and the bed creaked sharply in protest. This was not going to be a fun year, he decided. The ground was covered in things and not one of those things were his. Frustrated, he kicked everything in a pile onto the other side of the room. Maybe that would send the message.

Mako grabbed a change of clothes and trudged off to the bathrooms to change, No way he was going to change in his room when Jamison might wake up and see him. The idea of any situation like that happening left a sick knot in Mako’s stomach.

Yesterday, Mako walked all over campus and found a few quiet places, but they were pretty far away. So once he got dressed,  He grabbed his ID card and walked to the dining commons to get breakfast. The novelty of dining commons food ensured that the room was packed. Voices echoed around the high ceiling and amplified the hundreds of shouting conversations to near deafening levels. Mako couldn’t find any tables to himself, but there was a long table with only three people at one end and he had a pair of headphones that he could block out everyone with, so he claimed his spot with his bag and went to stand in the unruly line of freshman who wanted eggs.

Mako had gotten back to his table and ensconced himself in eggs and toast and a Spotify playlist that had been recommended to him by the app’s weird algorithm when he got a tap on his shoulder. He blinked and took off his headphones to look over at an asian girl who was timid yet happy.

“Sorry, but, are these seats taken?” she asked in a little timid voice that matched her stature.

Mako shook his head and looked back down, expecting the chairs to be taken, but instead 4 people sat around him, much to Mako’s distaste.

“Thanks love! This place is absolutely packed! I’m Lena!” one of the girls said, outstretching a hand.

Mako didn't shake her hand and instead just grunted, “Mako.”

Lena’s smile didn’t falter and instead she started to introduce everyone, “Well, this is Mei, Zarya, and Jack. We’re all foreign students, well, except for Jack, he’s American. But I’m from Britain, Zarya’s Russian, and Mei’s Chinese! Isn’t that cool?”

As the little British girl rambled on, Mako noticed how the other people seemed to be less talkative. Maybe these people could be quiet and bearable. Mako nodded softly and let her talk until Jack cut in.

“Lena, you’re talking his ear off.”

“Then you guys say something!”

Zarya sighed and started talking about something mundane and meaningless conversation ensued. Mako listened idly, enjoying the fact that he wasn’t being asked or expected to contribute. After he finished his plate of food, he sat a while and listened to them talk about roommates and anticipated classes and rumors that had been heard by upperclassmen.

“Zarya, I cannot believe you chose a 7am class, I did not even know they were offered that early,” Mei said meekly.

“It is good to wake early and get a start on the day. I woke up at 6 this morning and ran 5 miles. It is good for the body.” Zarya said with a smile, “You should come running with me, Mei.”

“Oh no, I am not one to wake up early,” Mei said quickly, “Also I am not so fast, I would only slow you down.”

“Then maybe another time,” she offered.

“Oh, m-maybe!” Mei stumbled.

Mako grunted softly and checked the time. He stood up with his plate.

“Oh! Where are you off to, love?” Lena asked with a sweetly curious expression.

“Library,” Mako muttered.

“Oh! Well then, we’ll see you around!”

He grunted.

-

Mako stayed for a few hours while he printed out syllabi and used the library copies of his textbooks to read ahead a few chapters for his classes. He couldn’t afford all of the textbooks that he was going to need for his classes. Sometimes a single book could cost over a hundred dollars or only 20 dollars but the class would require 6 or 7 of those books. It was a plight that lots of college students knew too well. So Mako chose instead to just borrow from the library when he could. The only downside was he couldn't take the books out of the library sometimes and the books weren’t guaranteed to be there. Thus the plight of poor college students.

He rode his sturdy bike back to the dorms and walked up the multiple flights of stairs to his room. Mako prayed he would be alone in the room, but this was college, and Nietzsche was right. When Mako entered the room, music was blasting and the place was trashed. Jamison had not taken the hint.

Mako’s roommate in question was sitting on a chair and was spinning around while painting his toenails, only one foot though. His other leg was across the room on the ground.

“It's you.” Jamison groaned, “You here to keep bitching about things? Or are you here to apologize?”

Mako stared at him and started kicking Jamison’s shit to his side of the room.

“Keep your filth off my side, Jamison, and maybe clean up for once.” Mako said.

“Oi! Be careful! ‘S fuckin’ rude to just kick people’s shit!” he shouted whilst jumping up.

What he didn’t take into account was the leg that was on the other side of the room and not attached to his stump, so he was caught off balance and would have caught his chin on the desk if Mako wasn’t there to reach out and grab his arm. A spark passed through Mako’s body and they both recoiled from each other.

“Don’t fuckin’ touch me! Lemme go!” Jamison snapped, “’N don’t call me Jamison, my fuckin’ mum calls me that. It’s Jamie.”

“I don’t care,” Mako huffed. He figured the spark of emotion he felt was some strange mixture of static electricity and pure disgust for this idiot of a roommate.

“You’re a real asshole, ain’t ya? I’ve just been having a good time ‘n you really seem to want to ruin that!”

Jamie had made his way across the room and was now securing his prosthetic leg.

“You have no respect for anyone’s boundaries or any sense of decency.” Mako retorted as he turned his attention to his desk to tidy up.

“Well, with all respect, fuck you, mate. You’re the FUCKING worst.”

With those last words, Jamie grabbed his bag and left, slamming the door behind him.

“Good riddance,” Mako mumbled.

He decided to spend the rest of the day cleaning everything up, or rather cleaning up his side and dumping all of the crap onto Jamie’s bed. From then on, Mako sat at his desk and listened to music while doodling in his sketch book. This was calming and familiar to him. Sketching let him shift all focus from whatever was stressing him out to one task. He did this for a few hours, letting himself calm down before the tell tale grumbling of hunger urged him to go get some dinner before the dining commons closed. As he walked himself to the dining commons, he heard the sound of the zippy british girl from earlier.

“Cheers love, the cavalry's here!” she called in some of strange greeting.

Mei sighed.

“She has been saying that for hours.” she said in small apology.

Mako shrugged and let them join him for the meal. It was pleasant, and each took turns critiquing the different meals they got. Mako even added input about the significant lack of salt on his french fries. Lena started giggling at the ‘salt’ Mako was showing towards the lack of salt. He even chuckled himself.

-

It was hours later when Mako found himself in a particular predicament. He had taken a break from reading a new book that he had gotten for a high school graduation present when he got up to go to the bathroom. It was just a normal trip to the other side of the floor. Mako didn’t notice what was wrong until he had gotten back and tried to open his door again. The problem was that he couldn’t; he didn’t have his ID card to open the door.

he thought and the realization that the services center was closed started to dawn upon him. He was locked out of his room and there was only way for him to get back in. He was going to have to ask for help.

There was a little whiteboard next to each room, and their whiteboard was covered in little doodles and writing already courtesy of Jamie and his friends. Amongst the little drawn bombs with smiley faces and random words was Jamie’s phone number written, frustratingly, in hard-to-read yellow pen. With a frustrated sigh, he typed the number in and called the number. A slurred voice answered after a few rings. The background was very loud, he was obviously at a party.

“Hello? Who’s this?” Jamie asked, slurring.

“It’s….. Mako. Your roommate.” He sighed before continuing, “I’m locked out of the room, and I need some help.”

“Well, sounds like you're fresh out of luck, mate. If you want help, you’re going to have to come to me.”

“Seriously? Fine. Where are you?”

“I’m downstairs, Room 106” he laughed before hanging up.

Mako thought before walking downstairs.

The hallway was filled with smoke and it burned in Mako’s lungs. Quickly he covered his mouth and nose with his shirt. He had bad asthma and his inhaler was still in the room. Where the hell was the Resident Advisors? People looked at him with judging eyes as he pushed his way to the door and knocked hard.

The door was answered and the room was stuffed. Standing at the door was someone Mako didn’t recognize. Mako shook off any anxiety and addressed them.

“I’m looking for my roommate, Jamie.” he said.

The man was smoking, he took a long draw and blew it straight into Mako’s face, leaving Mako light-headed and coughing.

“Oh,

Jamie’s roommate? What did he say your name was? Mike?”

“No….. it’s Mako….”

“Whatever, you’re not welcome here, go the fuck away.” the guy said before starting to close the door, but Mako stuck his foot in the door and it was smashed pretty painfully, but Mako didn’t budge.

“Just let me talk to him, ok? I’m locked out. Jamie!” Mako tried to shout for his roommate, but he got shoved by the guy and thrown back. The air was knocked out of him and Mako was gasping.

“You just don’t know when to leave people alone, do you?” By then, two other guys had joined the first and were starting to corner him.

-

Jamie hadn’t noticed what was going on outside the room until Mako was on the ground and getting kicked by three large guys.

“Oi! Mates! Knock it the fuck off!” he shouted, his buzz killed by the scene before him.

No one stopped however, until Jamie physically grabbed them by the shoulders and shouted into their ears to back off. Once he was free, Mako quietly stood up; he was bruised and had a busted lip that was bleeding. He didn’t say anything but instead turned and started to walk away.

Guilt grabbed Jamie’s heart and he rushed after Mako shouting.

“Hey! Michael! I’m sorry! I-I didn’t tell them to do that! I’ll let you into the room, ok? Just say that you forgive me! It wasn’t my fault anyways. I didn’t tell them to! Those guys did it on their own. You should have called me! Oi! Are you even listening?”

Mako until this point had been silent, but as soon as he got to the door, he spun and glared Jamie straight into the eye.

“YES. I am listening, and I understand that you are the worst roommate ever, You trash the room, curse at me, invite people without asking, talk about me behind my back and in front of me, and you even sicced your friends on me. Never once have you considered my feelings or what I wanted. You’re rude and you’re awful and an absolute prick. I don’t forgive you. And my NAME is MAKO.”

With that, Mako let himself into the room and threw the card back at Jamie before slamming the door shut.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mako realizes his words might have had a stronger effect than he intended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for how late this chapter is! I have a book full of excuses ranging from family troubles, to moving, to mental illness shit. BUT, it's finally out! Thank you so much to everyone for the kudos and the comments. The comments especially really motivated me to keep this little fan fiction alive. I'm a gremlin who craves validation, feed me.

The next morning, Mako woke and found the room was actually not a disaster zone like the morning before. He blinked, surprised and looked up to see that Jamie’s bed wasn’t occupied. The room wasn’t spotless, far from it, but compared to the day before, it was downright habitable. The desk chairs were pushed in, and all of Jamie’s excess crap was piled in the corner of the room. Mako could actually see the floor.

He got up and looked around. Did Jamie do this? On his desk, a small sticky note had a tiny note scrawled on it in a dull graphite.

“Sorry,” it said.

Mako picked up the note perplexed and studied it closely. Obviously Jamie had written it, who else could have? With a small sigh he crumpled it and stuck the note in the trash. Had he been too harsh on the little guy? Jamie had been really shitty, unapologetically so. Maybe he was finally going to be less of a prick.

His own things seemed to have been left untouched, much to Mako’s relief. He hated his things being invaded, it was an extension of his desire for privacy. He rummaged around in the drawers assigned to him and chose a new outfit for the day, nothing special. Just a pair of jeans and a pink pig shirt.

One of his biggest weaknesses he never wanted to tell anyone was his deep love for pigs. It was the reason for his majoring in animal science. He wanted to be closer to them and other animals. Pigs were better than people, in his opinion, they were calm and happy to just be. People were so hurried, bumbling around like there was something so important all the time. People couldn’t just be, they had to shout and move and occupy silence. The image of Jamie entered his head, always screaming and moving around and fidgeting. Like a rat or something. Rat, that was a good descriptor for his roommate. Perhaps he didn’t love every single animal like he thought.

Shaking the thoughts from his head, Mako went to finish the morning necessities in a steady rhythm.

The day was average, Mako spent time exploring the campus and investigating clubs that were advertising on campus. Nothing really drew his eye though. Mako wasn’t interested in the sports clubs, he wasn’t a sports person. The sports clubs made it obvious they weren’t interested in him either judging by the averted eyes and how they suddenly and conveniently didn't have fliers. All except for the wrestling team, who seemed very interested in Mako. They shoved a flier in his hand and pried his school email from him to email him events and sign up dates. Mako tried wrestling in high school, he was good, but he didn’t enjoy it. He threw away the flier into the next available trash can. Hobby clubs seemed too specific for what he was interested in. There was a Star Trek club, a Zombie club, a Harry Potter club, and even clubs that catered to different genres of anime. But where was the sit-down-and-relish-in-solitude club? That was the club Mako wanted. But nothing seemed to fit the bill, which made sense, of course. Clubs were about socialization, not solitude.

Mako had run into his “friend” group again at the dining commons when he went to get late lunch. It was interesting to see how coincidence kept them running into each other. He didn’t really know if these were his friends, however. They seemed nice, and they sat with him. Was that all that friendship required? No. It wasn’t. Mako decided not to dwell on it heavily at the moment though. Instead he looked up to see that they were discussing plans for the rest of the week before instruction officially started. How to spend the last few days of welcome week. They had really seemed adamant that they needed to do something big, perhaps party-esque. That didn’t really sit well with Mako, but he didn’t say, he just wouldn’t go. Mako felt no strong obligation to actually actively pursue friendship with these people, just to let whatever happen, happen. Like a pig.

“I’m telling you,” Lena had been saying, “This party is going to be so good! I have all the Star Wars movies on my laptop, and we can sneak into my science lecture hall and use the projector screen.”

“Won’t the janitors catch us and make us leave?” Mei asked.

“Not if I hide from them and we wait until they leave. I’ll go in, hide in the bathrooms and in between the rows of seats, and wait for the janitors to leave and lock the door. Then I’ll just let all of you guys in and no one will bug us.”

They were having a lot of fun planning, but it didn’t really feel appealing to Mako. He finished his food and gave the group a small farewell before leaving.

He headed to his room, he figured it would be a good idea to get some reading in before Jamie returned. He seriously doubted that Jamie would have learned his lesson. In Mako’s experience, people rarely did. Once an asshole, always an asshole, no matter how many times they tried to manipulatively convince you otherwise. When he entered the room, it was seemingly untouched similar to the morning so he assumed that Jamie was still gone. However, upon further inspection, he realized there was another note on his desk.

“Please don’t hate me..”

Mako frowned and crumpled up the note again. Nope, he wasn’t going to let himself fall victim to an obvious guilt-trip. He didn’t do anything wrong and was justified. Jamie had been an absolute dick… right?

The weeks following had seen more notes though, all the way through the start of instruction. That and a consistently picked up room and absent Jamie. Sure, he saw the guy sometimes, but the moment Mako touched the door handle, a mad dash would be heard on the other side, and the door was opened to see Jamie with his head down rushing out of the room. No words. This had happened a few times that Mako knew it wasn’t just a coincidence. He was clearly being avoided.

The notes however kept up a steady one-way dialogue.

“Good luck on your classes”

“I moved your book from the ground to your desk, really sorry”

“I didn’t tell those guys to write that on the board, im so sorry!” Mako hadn’t seen whatever Jamie was talking about, so he disregarded the note that time.

“Good luck” notes came just as often as the “I’m sorry” notes. After a while, Mako stopped throwing them away and started to keep them stashed in his book. He was confused at the consistency of these notes and how one never failed to appear in the morning and sometimes the afternoon. It started forming to the point where Mako was actively thinking about it at night and wondered what were the little rat’s motivations. Which note would it be this time? Sorry or Good luck? Why did he care so much?

It was one day in the dining commons that he had decided what he needed to do. He had been surrounded by Lena and others when he was given a nudge that pulled him out of his thoughts, it was Zarya. They all looked intently at him when he realized that he was just staring off into space for nearly 20 minutes, not even touching his food.

“You look distracted, what is wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing.” he shrugged and stood up, “I have to go.”

None of the others complained, Mako’s habit was just to stand and leave. They didn’t even seek him out anymore, he had to seek them out on his own. But he wasn’t concerned with the fading intensity of the new group of friends. He probably would grow to stop hanging out with them altogether, he could feel it happening. That happened sometimes, friends don’t always stick. Life wasn’t a story book and one couldn’t always count on the people met in the beginning to matter so much in the end. He was finding himself more and more concerned with Jamie and the odd behavior that persisted.

He wanted to talk to him. To figure out just why Jamie was like this so he could move on with his life. That’s it, just a single conversation. However, that turned out to be a lot easier said than done.

~

His first plan was to simply wait in the room until Jamie showed up so he could talk to him, but apparently the little rat was rarely in the room.

He spent all his free time the next few days sitting in his room either studying or reading. He knew eventually Jamie would show and he could finally ask. But he never managed to be in the room at the same time until finally three days into this. It was after one of Mako’s English class that he heard Jamie on the other side of the door shuffling around. This was his chance. He carefully slipped his card into the reader and entered the room.

“Hey, Jamie, I want to ta-” he started, but he was cut off by getting pushed out of the way.

He was so stunned that he could only stare stunned as Jamie disappeared around the corner. It was a blatant fail.

~

Next he decided a good approach would be to figure out his class schedule and to catch him after one of his classes. Mako got this idea after seeing Jamie’s schedule on his desk. He clicked a photo of it and saved it to favorites. So he wouldn’t lose it, of course, no other reason.

Jamie had three classes, but only one chance to catch him off guard. The first one was in the science lecture hall, an introductory chemistry course, but it took place during one of Mako’s lectures on the other side of campus. The second was an english course, but same as the last time, Mako’s schedule required him to be in another place at the same time. The last one was going to be his only chance to pull it off. An upper division sculpting class. Mako was actually quite surprised, Jamie didn’t strike him as the artsy type, especially good enough to be taking a upper division class so early in his college career.

The class was a surprisingly late one, Mako normally let himself fall asleep at 8:30, but he made an exception for this class that ended around 9:30. It was also on the other side of the campus.

Giving himself a good head start, he walked to the small art building that sat snugly in the corner of campus. It was almost impossible to find so hidden away in tall bushes and trees. Mako wondered to himself if the perceived isolation was part of the aesthetic the art classes were trying to achieve. Create art separate from society or something like that. Mako yawned and rubbed his eye a bit as he lazily inspected the art posted around the building. He had actually shown up a few minutes early and was able to take his time searching for the room. He took a bit too much time, however, and the sounds of shuffling and packing up could be heard from the other side of the building. He quickly walked over and try to peer over the crowd of people to catch a glimpse of Jamie.

Jamie was taking his time in the room. He seemed to be very carefully wrapping up a little vase or something. The wrap he was using was too small, so he set it aside and started searching the shelves on the other side of the room for something bigger. It was then that Mako was able to really see the work for its sophistication and beauty. The base was rather simple, a round coiled base, but the little coils worked their way up and separated, almost in a still dance that wrapped around itself into a tapered top. From the sides, came little leaves and flowers that somehow seamlessly sprouted from the bottom. Though the piece was just clay, it felt like a living breathing piece of organic art. Mako was so transfixed in the complexity of the vase that he didn’t realize that he had been spotted. By the time he had looked up, Jamie was already grabbing his backpack and rushing out the back door, leaving his vase abandoned.

“J-Jamie!” Mako called, running after him into the other hall. But, yet again, it was too late. Jamie was on a bicycle and speeding off, and Mako had completely forgotten to bring his own bike.

Another fail. Mako felt disheartened and a little frustrated. Why was he being so avoided, there was no excuse this time. Jamie had even left his sculpture that had seemed to have taken him quite a few long hours to make. With a sigh, Mako walked back to the class to see it abandoned completely. The vase was still sitting on the table. Carefully, Mako picked it up and wrapped it in his jacket. No need for it to just be left here.

The walk back to the dorm was a slow one, perhaps he would be able to see Jamie and attempt to corner him in the room again. But when he unlocked the door and walked in, the room was bare. Jamie had obviously been here, the blankets and one of his pillows were gone. Had he decided to sleep somewhere else? With a friend maybe? Mako frowned and put the sculpture on Jamie’s desk. He looked at it for a moment and decided to write a note of his own.

“You forgot something.”

The handwriting was neat, something that had always surprised people. Mako prided himself in his good penmanship. He added a little picture of a pig absent mindedly. Nothing complex, just a simple cute piggy.

He left the note next to the vase and decided to call it a night. He had no way of knowing where Jamie was and was starting to wonder why he cared so much in the first place. He was annoyed with how much he was obsessing over his own roommate who had been nothing but rude to him his first few days of school. He was actually changing his own routine to try to figure out more about the smaller blonde. As he flopped down onto the bed that groaned in protest, he let his thoughts wander and flit about the subject before slowly falling asleep.

~

The notes had all but stopped following that night. Nearly a week passed without so much as a single bit of communication, and the avoiding had been worse. Times when Mako ran into Jamie were very few and far between. It started to feel like Mako lived with a ghost rather than a human being, and Mako found himself missing the little scraps of paper and doodles that used to be left on his desk.

One night, Mako realized he was flipping through the old notes instead of reading his textbook. He threw down the notes angrily. Why did he care so much! The nagging thoughts plagued him and kept him from getting anything done. He hated being so distracted by someone who wasn’t even worth his time. He wanted to get this whole ordeal over and done with so he could finally get back to his solitude without being so distracted. He packed up his books and papers earlier than he normally did and walked back to the dorm room swiftly.

Due to the breach of schedule, Jamie was the one caught off guard. He barely had enough time to gather up his things before attempting to leave.

“I-I’m sorry…” he mumbled before trying to slip past Mako.

“No.”

Mako grabbed Jamie’s arm before he could complete his disappearing act and thrust him back into the room. All of the smaller boy’s things fell to the floor.

“No, we are _not_ playing this bullshit again.” Mako growled, closing the door and blocking the way, “And you are _not_ going to avoid me again. We’re talking about this now so I can finally get a moment’s peace!”

Jamie was speechless. He looked up at Mako wide-eyed and astonished.

“I-I dont…” he tried to mutter but was cut off by Mako.

“NO, don’t you dare give some shitty excuse about how you don’t know what I’m talking about! You are obviously avoiding me! You’ve been avoiding me for WEEKS. I’m sick of it!”

“Sorry… I just…”

“Just what?”

“Didn’t want to be in your way anymore…” Jamie attempted feebly.

It was at this moment that Mako realized that his hand were balled into tight fists, and Jamie was on the ground, semi-cowering. The situation wasn’t right. This was all wrong, Mako wasn’t supposed to be in the wrong here. Slowly un-balling his fists, Mako attempted to diffuse the situation.

“What are you talking about?” Mako asked, trying to keep a calm tone.

“You were right,” Jamie said, “I was being really shitty. I was hanging with the wrong people and thinking only about myself. I thought that you didn’t want to see anymore of me, s-so I tried to make that happen. Y-Y’know just disappear so you didn’t have to see me anymore. So you could have that solitude stuff you wanted.”

Jamie looked so upset, Mako actually felt a deep twinge of guilt reverberate through his body. He knew what he needed to do, what he needed to admit to Jamie and himself. Mako sat down where he stood and pursed his lips.

“It wasn’t just you…” Mako muttered quietly, “I wasn’t exactly being the best roommate either…”

“But you didn’t beat me up. My so called friends attacked you!”

“Doesn’t mean you told them to, didn’t you step in and stop them?”

“W-Well yeah, but-”

“Yet I still blamed you. Sounds like I was being just as shitty.”

Jamie sat there and stared at the ground, silent for a few moments, so Mako pushed on.

“You don’t need to avoid me you know. Or do whatever it is you thought you needed to do. We should treat each other with respect, right?”

Jamie continued his silence, seemingly deep in thought. Mako gave him the time and let the uncomfortable silence sit for a minute or two.

“Right…” he finally answered, “We should… so…”

“Um…” Mako didn’t know what to say either, the atmosphere felt awkward.

Jamie finally looked up and cracked a somewhat smile, it was crooked, but it looked relaxed, “We can maybe get lunch together tomorrow?”

Instantly the awkward air dissipated with the young Australian’s smile, and the frustration and pain that had been holding Mako hostage also slipped away and he found his words came almost effortlessly.

“Yeah...that sounds nice…”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mako and Jamie get breakfast and start to discuss the events of the past few days. Other fun additions as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am soooooo sorry! This isn't even enough to make up for the long absence. I promise there's more to this chapter, which I'll be posting in a fun Chapter 3.5 later. 
> 
> College is hard and I realize that in the middle of a quarter, very little writing will get done. Sorry about this, but I hope to be able to make up for it during breaks. I'm slow af, but I've got some really good stuff planned, so please hang in there!! Your patience will be rewarded (I hope)
> 
> Veeeerrryyyy big thanks to everyone who comments or leaves kudos. I read absolutely every comment and when I get an email notification regarding this story, I feel newly invigorated and manage to write at least a few more lines before the anxiety bullies me into returning to my mountains of college papers and academic writing I have to do. Your comments actually matter! I feed off of them, like a no good fan fiction goblin.
> 
> Anywho, enough with me rambling. I hope you enjoy this not even half-ish chapter. Good shit is coming, I promise. No spoiling, but I'll let you know that very soon my outline gets covered in "good shit" and "OuO hue hue hue", we're heading to the good shit.
> 
> Ah, more rambling. ENJOY

The next morning was a strange one. For the first time in weeks, Mako didn’t wake up to an empty room. When he opened his eyes, he saw Jamie, awake and sitting at his desk. Jamie seemed really focused on whatever he was fiddling with in his hands. His fingers fidgeted and flitted about wires and little screws; Mako found himself staring. Jamie glanced over for just a second before turning red as a cherry and stashing whatever it was in his desk drawer.

“M-Mako!” Jamie exclaimed, “You’re awake!”

He blinked a few times before answering.

“Yeah….” he said before sitting up. His shirt was all bunched up and uncomfortable, so he took a few moments to carefully smooth his shirt down over his stomach. This time, it was Jamie’s turn to stare, his cheeks were flush. Mako didn’t really understand or process Jamie’s blush, so he just got out of the bed and started rooting around for day clothes.

“What time is it?” Mako asked, rubbing  his eyes.

“About 10…” Jamie said, “But it’s Saturday, so there isn’t class or anything.”

Mako took in the information, deemed it accurate, and nodded. Finally he got his hands on a pair of jeans, and a fresh shirt. 

“I’m gonna take a shower…” Mako muttered, and Jamie gave him a little nod and watched Mako leave the room.

When Mako was gone, Jamie jumped up and looked around, the anxieties of the previous week still making him want to keep everything clean. He straightened his desk and tucked his little fiddling project into the desk where it couldn’t be found and sat back down. He tried to sit still and patient, but he started to get fidgety and he started chewing on his fingernails and spinning around in his chair. 

Mako returned freshly showered and awake about 20 minutes later and saw Jamie gnawing on his fingers and rocking back and forth. 

“You ok?” he asked hesitantly.

Jamie looked over and pulled his hands out of his mouth and flushed with embarrassment, “Y-Yeah, it’s just a bad habit…”

Mako grunted and started to gather up his books and notebooks. 

“Where’re you going?” Jamie asked.

“Library.”

“Why?”

Mako shrugged.

“We should eat breakfast. It’s Saturday right? I think they have pancakes today.”

Mako paused at the sound of pancakes, “...they do?”

“Yeah! Me and Amélie and Gabe usually meet down there, they have 4 types of uh, the sticky stuff… ummm…” Jamie paused and seemed to be searching for the word.

“...syrup?” Mako offered.

“Syrup! Yeah. They set up this huge spread! I mean, they didn’t used to, it started last week, but Gabe said that he heard from his friend who works in the DC that because so many people liked it, they’re going to make a whole buffet every Saturday morning. I mean, who doesn’t love pancakes, right? They’re sweet! But they don’t have to be. Like those skinny french pancakes, what does Amélie call them? Crabs? Crips? Fuck…” he was searching for the word again.

“...crepes?”

“Yeah, those! Apparently there's a Crepe place downtown, but Amélie won’t go there with me. She said it’s not authentically french or something…” Jamie cut himself off suddenly and clasped a hand over his mouth and muttering between his fingers, “Am I talking too much? Gabe says I have a habit of rambling.”

Mako shrugged and shook his head, “Doesn’t bother me.” 

He glanced over and saw excitement light up in Jamie’s eyes. With a big smile, Jamie grabbed his lanyard and shoved them into his cargos. 

“Let’s go then!”

~

Mako didn’t remember accepting to follow Jamie down to breakfast, but the fast-talking Australian just babbled and chattered and seemed to make a bunch of assumptions. Normally, Mako would be really annoyed by this. A few weeks ago he even snapped at Jamie for doing just that, but something felt different this time. Nothing malicious was intended with Jamie’s enthusiasm. 

Things passed by in a blur and before Mako realized, he was sitting down with a tall stack of pancakes covered in syrup, strawberries, bananas, and whipped cream. It was more than he would have gotten himself normally, but Jamie had insisted that he get all the extra toppings. Jamie’s plate was hidden underneath all the food he had gotten. Jamie put some of everything on his plate in great abundance.

Jamie was shoveling food into his mouth and chattering away. What was it about this time? Mako tuned in for a few minutes.

“...gave us 8 books to read in 10 weeks. It’s awful. They’re not even interesting books, and the books are like $20 each in the book store! That’s a lot of money for one class. I hate it.” 

Mako grunted, “Sounds annoying.”

This seemed enough for Jamie and he continued on complaining about book costs. Mako half-listened, nodding and grunting at appropriate intervals. After a while, Jamie suddenly got really loud, pulling Mako out of his daze.

“Amelie! Gabe,” Jamie smiled, waving two people over, “Pull up some chairs!”

Mako looked up to see two people he didn’t recognize. 

“Who’s this, Jamie?” the girl, Amelie probably, asked.

“Mako,” Jamie said, “My roommate.”

Gabe laughed and pulled up a chair, “ _ This  _ is Mako?” 

Suddenly Mako felt really uncomfortable. What had Jamie said about him? He shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

“Yeah!”

“I thought he hated you.” Amelie said nonchalantly, she was the only one who wasn’t eating a pancake. She had a bowl of fruit and a cup of coffee.

Jamie blushed really hard and he glanced over at Mako apologetically, “He doesn’t. I was just over exaggerating…” he confessed.

“Jamie? Over exaggerating? Noooooooo,” Gabe teased, slicing into a pancake. 

Mako frowned, what else had Jamie said? What did these people think about him?

“Don’t worry,” Amelie said, reading Mako’s mind, “Jamie just cried a lot about how you were such a good roommate and how he wished he didn’t mess up so bad, et cetera, et cetera.”

Mako calmed a little, but he still didn’t like that all this had happened how it did.

“We told you it sounded like a misunderstanding,” Gabe sighed, “You just needed to explain what happened.”

This piqued Mako’s attention and he spoke up for the first time. “Explain?” Mako asked. 

“Well, those people Jamie was hanging out with were absolute shit bags,” Amelie said, “And it took Jamie a few days to realize he was hanging with the wrong crowd.” 

Mako looked at Jamie for an explanation, this time it was Jamie’s turn to shift uncomfortably. 

“They… uh…” he muttered, poking at his pancakes.

“You didn’t tell him?” Gabe asked, “Dude.”

“He didn’t ask?” Jamie offered.

“Not a good enough excuse.” Gabe shook his head.

“What happened?” Mako insisted, giving him intense eyes.

Jamie crossed his arms and pursed his lips, “Well… When I first got here, I was desperate to find someone to be my friend, so I accepted the first invitation I got. To be honest, they probably wanted somewhere to hang out, but I was just so excited to actually have a group of friends. On that first day, they all piled into the room and brought drugs and alcohol. I couldn’t risk looking like a fucking dag! So I went ahead and got super bombed out. I drank a little in high school, but never like this.” 

At this Jamie sighed and rubbed his temples at the past memory of the monster hangover he had the next day.

“While I was drunk I was complaining about you. Stupid drongo, I was, but I did. And I skewed what I said so it sounded like you were the bad roommate, not me. Those guys that did all that were drunk for sure. I tried to stop them, Mako, I did, but….” he started tearing up and wiped at his eyes furiously, “Anyways… when I went back down stairs, I yelled at those guys. Told them they were right pricks. They didn’t really like that. In fact, they stopped talking to me altogether. I gave them all my number, but they never used it. I still went to their parties though, even though I wasn’t explicitly invited. They weren’t fun because it seemed like I was being alienated by fucking everyone. Everyone hated me, but I was so desperate, I didn’t want to be alone…” 

“You’re not alone, now,” Amelie urged, giving him a little punch in the arm.

“Right,” Jamie said, his frown becoming a smile, “I met Amelie and Gabe after this one party those other guys had thrown. A bunch of freshman girls had shown up and proceeded to get wasted out of their minds. I had decided to not drink that night, not that I was being offered anything. Anyhow, one of the girls was getting all rubbed up on. She was trying to push him away, but she was cross-faded and barely aware of her surroundings. I got up and stood up to those guys, I was able to shake them off of her, but I got my arse kicked for the effort. Anyways, after they were done with me, I walked her back to her dorm room. It was in the Talon residency halls over on the other side of campus. Turns out she was Amelie’s roommate.”

At this point, Amelie took over, giving Jamie a chance to eat his pancakes. Mako was surprised. He hadn’t considered what Jamie had been doing during all that time he wasn’t in the room. He figured it was something obnoxious, but he didn’t realize that he had been dealing with all that. 

“Jamie isn’t doing the story justice--,” Amelie said with a small scoff, “He was absolutely covered in blood, it got all over my carpet!”

“Was not!” Jamie grumbled through a mouthful of pancake.

“I used my entire box of bandaids on your face!” she insisted, “Anyhow, he saved my roommate from getting raped, it was a big deal. She passed out on my bed, and he was in too bad of shape to just go back, and we couldn’t go to the RA’s, they’d bust him for going to a frat party and drinking. He wasn’t drunk, but he still reeked of beer from everyone else. My roommate had been leaning on him pretty heavily, so he smelled like alcohol and drugs.”

Gabe nodded thoughtfully, “Oh, and I share two classes with Amelie. He was staying with her for a few nights, so I met him when I came over. You would not believe the shit we all got up to.”

Gabe snickered and started to recount stories with Amelie and Jamie, not chronologically and in no particular order, just wherever the conversation led.

Mako nodded, taking everything in. He was curious and a little concerned. Was this where Jamie had disappeared all that time? Jamie wasn’t looking up, instead he was staring intensly at his pancakes, like he was embarrassed to be the topic of conversation. On his cheek and a little above his ear, Mako could see a scab that was nearly healed but it was evident that scarring was going to be left. He pursed his lips and felt his heart squeeze. He couldn’t exactly figure why, however. 

_ Guilt _ , he finally decided,  _ I must be feeling guilty _ .


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mako is swept off his feet in a whirlwind that is his new friends.

They left the DC after chatting a bit more about the affairs that Jamie, Amelie, and Gabe had been up to. Apparently, it was a common thing for them to engage in various shenanigans on the drop of the dime. Jamie had fondly recalled the time they played hide and seek in one of the more maze like lecture halls at 2 am in the pitch black. Amelie laughed over the memory of stealing all the spare keys from the local frat and sorority houses because Amelie knew where they were hidden and wanted to get back at a girl for reasons she wouldn’t specify besides “It’s a lesbian thing, you wouldn’t understand.” Gabe told of the time they snuck into a bar with fake ids just so they could eat the food there because it was rumored to be top notch. Mako was surprised by all they managed to do in just a few weeks. For a moment, he wondered when the hell they ever found time to study for their classes as studying was all Mako ever seemed to do himself.

“Shit, but imagine if it turned out they were lovers the whole time!” Jamie said, eyes bright and excited.

They were talking about some show or game or something, Mako couldn’t quite figure it out from the conversation, while walking back from the DC, presumably towards the dorm room he and Jamie shared.

Amelie shook her head with a pout, “Nah, the creators are no where near progressive enough to add a cannon gay romance.”

“But they hinted they might,” Gabe said, “Do you even follow the developer’s twitter?”

“Pff,  _ might, _ ” Amelie scoffed, “That’s just to make people excited, I don’t believe they’ll  _ actually  _ do it. This is Maelstrom we’re talking about.”

Jamie huffed, “Doesn’t stop me from reading the fan fictions.” he said.

Amelie shrugged and flipped through her phone. 

“Oh,” she said, “The library’s open, I have to print a paper.”

“I wanna come!” Jamie said excitedly.

“Why?” Gabe scoffed, “You hate the library,”

“It could be fun if we wanted it to be.”

“Exactly how?”

At this point, Mako spoke up with a little cough to clear his throat.

“A-hem, Well, I need to check out a book.”

Jamie looked over with wide eyes and an even wider smile, “Perfect! We’ll all go to the library then!”

He cut through the group and started to make a path towards the main campus in the opposite direction. Amelie, Gabe, and Mako paused for a bit, half-surprised at his sudden change of course, but were soon following the excited Australian.

The library was pretty empty, which was typical for a Saturday. A few students wandered around, but for the most part, the building was quiet. This only fed into Jamie’s desire to always fill silence with some sort of noise.

“It’s too quiet here. Does anything exciting ever happen?” he asked.

“It’s the library, the most exciting thing ever to happen here was probably a student turning their paper seconds before a deadline,” Amelie said with a shrug, “I’m gonna go to the printing lab, Mako, you should go find that book.”

Mako nodded and pulled out his phone to look up the call number of the book he needed.

“I can help! I’m good at finding,” Jamie insisted.

Gabe smirked and waved goodbye at the two before following Amelie to a different part of the library.

“Where’s the book?” Jamie asked, trying to peek on Mako’s screen, “What’s it called?”

Mako clicked his phone off and stuffed it into his pocket and headed towards the elevator, 

“It’s called Robinson Crusoe,” he said, “It’s on the fourth floor.”

“Is it for a class?” Jamie asked.

Mako nodded and stepped into the elevator and clicked the very top button. Jamie practically skipped into the elevator next to him. The elevator ride up should have been quiet, but Jamie was there so it was anything but.

“So do you come here a lot?” Jamie asked, “I mean, I’m just guessing, but you really like books right?”

“I do,” Mako said, “But I really only come here to study for my classes.”

“When do you read?” Jamie asked.

Mako just shrugged, “Whenever.” 

Mako shushed Jamie when the doors opened. Talking might have been allowed on the bottom floor of the library, but the 4th floor was dead silent and even the smallest peep stood out like a sore thumb. Jamie tried his hardest to remain silent, he bit his lip when he wanted to speak up and twiddled his thumbs to keep busy. He followed dutifully, but after a few moments of following Mako around, he had to speak up.

“Why do we have to be quiet anyways?” he huffed.

Mako was caught off guard by the loud noise. Jamie only had one volume; he could barely stand to whisper, and his normal conversation levels were higher than one would hope. Disgruntled, Mako shushed him again and whispered in return.

“People are studying.”

“Why does that affect me?” Again with the same loud voice.

“They can’t concentrate if you don’t shut up,” Mako said with a sharp look, “It’s rude to talk.”

He walked down one of the aisles of books where he suspected he would be able to find his book. 

“How about you look for my book,” Mako said, “Look for call number PR3403.A2.”

“3403,” Jamie repeated, “3403.”

He went to the other end of the aisle and crouched down, “3403. 3403.” 

Mako leafed through books, hoping that they would be in order. But hoping was for fools. Some jerk had come through and rearranged all the books to make it impossible to find. He groaned softly and started his game of iSpy.

“What was the book called again?” Jamie asked rather loudly.

Mako sighed.

“Robinson Crusoe. It’s by Daniel Defoe.”

“Daniel Defoe?” Jamie said, pulling out a book from the bottom shelf, “This guy?”

Mako looked over and nodded, “Yeah, thanks. Good job.”

Jamie’s face lit up at the praise and he handed the book over proudly. 

Mako stood up straighter and tucked the book under his arm. The two of them went to the elevator and pressed the ground floor button. 

“Ya think Amelie and Gabriel are about done?”

Mako shrugged, “They shouldn’t have to wait for a computer. It’s Saturday.”

The mystery didn’t take too long to solve because as soon as the elevator doors opened, Amelie and Gabe were standing in the lobby with a stack of papers underneath Amelie’s arm. 

“You didn’t have to get us banned forever…” Amelie glared.

“That guy was abusing his power! He’s just mad because I called him out for bullshit in class.” Gabriel rolled his eyes.

“What happened?” Jamie asked.

“Gabriel had a pissing contest with the computer lab guy.” Amelie said.

“I knew him from my Philosophy class, he’s the TA, and he’s pissed that I pointed out that his entire argument was bullshit in front of everyone.”

“Whatever, now I have to watch out for that guy. I have to print a lot of stuff, Gabe!” 

“Whatever, he won’t even remember you in a day.” 

“Whatever, let’s just head back to my dorm to drop this off,” Amelie said. She still seemed a little irritated, but lightening up.

Jamie laughed and picked up the pace to catch up, throwing a momentary glance over his shoulder at Mako to encourage him to follow. 

Mako considered it for a moment, and ultimately decided that he had nothing better to do, but he tarried behind a little bit and scrolled through his phone.

The Talon Residency halls didn’t look exceptionally different from Overwatch; the only thing that was especially remarkable was the layout and color of the buildings. They still had a dining commons and even a little junction store to shop at when DC food had become unbearable.

Amelie lived on the top floor of her building, stairs only, and no one was pleased with this.

“I’ve been requesting a change,” she mumbled about it when complaints started to climb the stairs, “Apparently if both my legs work perfectly, they don’t care.”

“I’m telling ya,” Jamie said, a little breathless, “Let me break your leg and you can get that room switch.”

“Uh, how about I keep my legs intact and you stop whining.” 

Mako chuckled and leaned against the wall. His chest actually felt really tight from the climb, so he took a few steps back to use his inhaler. 

Amelie and Jamie walked in, but Gabriel noticed and gave Mako a grin. Mako felt his heart sink, ready to get taunted. He was about to start searching for an out when he noticed Gabriel flashing a blue inhaler of his own, it was attached to his jeans, but was underneath his hoodie.

“What brand do you use?” he asked.

“Oh, uh,” he mumbled, looking at his inhaler, “Airomir.”

“My parents went for Ventolin.” he said with a shrug, “As if it makes a difference.”

Mako nodded. He smiled a little bit and entered the room with him. 

Amelie’s room was typical for a shared girl’s dorm room that had frequent male guests. It was mostly clean except for a few corners, and the walls were completely covered in posters and pictures of various bands, shows, celebrities, and friends. However, what caught Mako completely off guard about the room was the mountain of forks that had been collected.

“Wh-...” he mumbled, “Forks.”

Jamie looked over at the forks and burst into a fit of giggles and had to bend over and clutch at his stomach. This led Amelie and Gabriel to start laughing themselves, but eventually Amelie was able to calm down enough to offer an explanation.

“Those- snrk- those are from the DC. Hahaha, we’re seeing how many we can steal before someone notices!” she laughed really hard and held up 8 fingers, “We’re at 88 so far.”

Jamie snickered and picked up a few, “Do we need any forks?” he asked Mako.

Mako raised his eyebrows at him, but he was smiling too; it was amusing. He shook his head.

Gabriel pulled a few forks from his pockets and added them to the pile, “92, now.”

When had he gotten those? Mako wondered. He didn’t get to know because the conversation had already shifted to the next thing, which was apparently a video on Jamie’s phone. He noticed a little pig phone charm dangling, it seemed reminiscent of Jamie’s sculpting style.

“Everyone’s seen that video,” Amelie said, rolling her eyes, “It was proven a fake, it was just a really good trigger bot. 360 no scope, my ass.”

“It was?” Jamie pursed his lips, “Is anybody good at playing snipers anymore?”

“Hey!” Amelie exclaimed, offended, “I’m amazing. Better than that cheating trash.”

“Takes more skill than what you do, Jamie.” Gabe smirked, “Anyone can lob explosives blindly through an enemy line.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Paladins.” the three of them said in almost unison. Jamie was a little slow on it.

“What’s that?”

“A game,” Amelie said, “Team-game we play together.”

“Not that anyone appreciates the non-dps characters,” Gabe muttered.

"That's because you're support and bad at dodging bullets."

“Anyways, whatever…” Jamie said, falling back onto Amelie's roommate’s bed, “I’m bored, I wanna go somewhere.”

Everyone was ensconced nicely in the room, surrounding the desk where Jamie put his phone so they could all see. Jamie was on the roommate’s bed, Mako was sat down on the ground besides him, and Gabe and Amelie were on rolling desk chairs. 

“Well, where do you want to go?” Gabe asked, leaned over the back of his chair and scrolling through his phone. 

Jamie’s eyes lit up and he shot upright in a moment, “We should go to this,” he said, pushing a flier into Amelie’s hands that was folded up in his pocket.

She took a moment to look, “This is two towns away. Where did you even find this?”

“Some guy was handing those fliers out a few days ago. Looks pretty cool, right?”

Mako caught a peek of the flier. It was promoting some sort of electronic show called Synaesthesia. 

Gabe, not looking away from his phone, piped in, “If we leave now, we could make it with an hour before the concert to walk around.”

That only fed into Jamie’s excitement, “Come on!”

“Well, it is only two bus rides to the venue…” Amelie said.

Mako hummed, maybe he would be able to duck out of this one. He didn’t want to go to a show and he was sure that they didn’t want him to be part of it. He shifted a bit and stood up, and made sure he had everything, but before he could even say that he was gonna go, Jamie jumped off the bed and look Mako directly in the eyes with a face that looked like a young puppy who had just heard the word "walk" for the first time in a week.

“You’re coming too, right Mako?” 

How could he possibly say no? How could anyone? “...yeah, sure.” he said, looking away. 

The rest of the night felt like a dream to Mako. So, everyone got their stuff and hurried to the bus station before the bus they needed left. Thankfully, the university had a lot of bus stops nearby, and it wasn’t that much of a rush. Gabriel had to pay for his bus fare because he left his student ID in Amelie’s room.

“He’s with us! He’s a student” Amelie had argued with the man, but eventually Gabriel had to pay the 2 dollars. 

The three friends talked the whole way, and Mako seriously regretted his decision to board the bus. He was standing uncomfortably close to too many people for about an hour of the ride. It wasn’t until near the end that he finally could justify sitting down in one of the seats. And for 80% of that, he was on his phone, praying for the hell to end. The other 20% was apologizing to various people he inevitably bumped into. It wasn’t until they switched to the next bus that he finally started to have any semblance of fun. The second bus was a lot emptier, and all the seats were oriented in twos. With everyone sitting down, Jamie ended up next to Mako, and chatting his ear off. Mako got a word in here and there, but mostly Jamie rambled, which Mako was fine with.

“The bloke couldn’t take a good joke. No sense of humor,” he huffed.

“I know a pretty good joke,” he said.

“Well out with it then!” Jamie insisted.

“Well,” Mako said, glancing at the little phone charm, “What do you call a pig without legs?”

“What?” Jamie asked, weirdly completely invested in Mako’s terrible joke.

“It’s a groundhog.”

Jamie howled with laughter and grabbed his stomach. It was infectious laughter and soon Mako was laughing too. Jamie pressed his face into Mako’s sleeve and wheezed giggles. Soon Amelie and Gabriel were peering back at the two and were asking what was so funny. But that was only the beginning. 

The show turned out to be pretty good and featured a genre of music Mako hadn’t heard before, but he decided he liked a lot. It was a different experience with Jamie, Amelie, and Gabriel. There was a huge mosh pit, but none of them joined it. Instead they hung around the back. They could still the music just fine and see the show, but they could also hear each other. Every now and then, Amelie and Gabriel would leave to join the mosh, but Jamie hung back with Mako and talked to him. However, these were different than other conversations that Mako had had with people. Mainly, he talked back. He felt compelled to contribute and felt pretty comfortable.

“So, why sculpting, you don’t really strike me as…” Mako brought up at some point during their conversing.

“As the kinda guy who wants to run around making floofy art like a gay boy?” he asked with raised eyebrows and an almost defensive stance. Jamie had obviously dealt with the accusation before.

Mako was shocked at the way he phrased it and shook his head. “I didn’t mean it like that…”

Jamie realized that his fists were clenched and let them go, “Right. My bad, mate. Those guys from before were real dicks.”

Mako nodded.

“Not that that is a problem….right?” Jamie asked.

“What?”

“Being gay, I mean… There’s nothing wrong with it?” he asked almost hesitantly.

“No,” Mako said, “I mean…” he trailed off.

“Bloody Excellent!” Jamie exclaimed, “Yeah, I mean, I didn’t think you were a fucking homophobe, but I can’t ever seem to be a good judge of people’s character.”

“Are you… gay?” Mako asked.

“Yea, why? Was it not clear?” Jamie asked, “....Are you?”

Mako felt his face heat up being suddenly on spot. He wasn’t out to anyone, not even any of his friends from high school, but he didn’t want to lie about it because it would mean him never being happy. He nodded a little bit.

“I-I think so? I mean, I’ve never really told anyone…”

Jamie was actually quiet then before letting his lips stretch into a really wide excited grin.

“Really? I’m the first?!” he jumped up in excitement, “That’s so bloody awesome! C’mon! We need to celebrate!”

Jamie jumped up and grabbed Mako by the arm.

The night ended with everyone sharing their sexualities, (Amelie was lesbian and Gabriel was bisexual), and Mako getting a T-shirt from the concert, and a little plush toy. Both were “Happy Coming Out” presents from Jamie and Amelie. They had actually not planned how to get home, however. The bus wasn’t running the lines they needed and everyone still didn’t have a car. So, being the more responsible one, Mako called an Uber, and everyone crammed into a tiny Ford. Jamie was practically sitting on Mako’s lap, which didn’t help the weird exposed feeling Mako had of coming out for the first time, but overall, he felt happy. These new people weren’t the worst friends, and with almost no planning and just exciting spontaneity, they embarked on a crazy adventure and made it up as they went along. By the end of the night, when Jamie and Mako were alone in their room getting ready to sleep for the night (or morning as it was nearly 2 am by the time they got back to town), Mako watched Jamie shift through a pile of clothes for a suitable outfit to sleep in; he ultimately just went with a shirt and a pair of short boxers. 

“You never told me,” Mako pointed out, softly.

“Told you what, mate?” Jamie asked, detaching his arm prosthetic and rubbing a sore stump.

“Why the sculpting?” 

“Oh,” Jamie chuckled, “Well, I got in a lot less trouble makin’ statues than when I was makin’ bombs.”

Mako looked at him with confused eyes, but was reassured by Jamie’s fit of giggles that followed it. He figured that meant that he was joking and that he just liked it was all. 

“G’night Mako.” Jamie smiled, as he took his leg off and shuffled into bed.

“Night,” Mako said, “ _And thanks_ ,” but he didn’t say the second part.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for your patience! Merry late-Christmas! 
> 
> (seriously, your patience has been golden and I love all of you! See you next chapter! Things are really heating up!)


End file.
